5 ms·

Oddly, "Vestibulum ante ipsum primis" translates to "Cisco Security", although taking each word separately translates to "Manufacturing before football first".

by bbx 13y ago

Oddly, "Vestibulum ante ipsum primis" translates to "Cisco Security", although taking each word separately translates to "Manufacturing before football first". I don't remember much about my Latin year but if each word has a different meaning depending upon what other word it's combined to, the possibilities are endless.

mjn 13y ago
Because of Google's approach based strictly on statistical regularities, words can completely change translations based on context even in languages where that wouldn't normally happen, because the contexts can swing the estimates. One funny one comes with city names, where Google sometimes mistakenly "translates" a city to a different city that happens to have frequent usage in the target language, in contexts that it must find analogous. For example, here are some translations involving the Danish city Billund (location of Lego), which change even based on punctuation: Billund -> Billund Jeg er i Billund -> I am in Billund Jeg er i Billund. -> I'm in London. For whatever reason, intriguing place-name translations are particularly common in the Danish->English case. Brøndby is often Red Sox, Odense is Kentucky, and Hillerød is sometimes Whatfield.
- mikeash 13y ago
  My favorite one was the word "Amistad!" translated Spanish->English: Amistad! -> Friendship! You could add more exclamation points, and they'd show up on the other side: Amistad!!! -> Friendship!!! But when you reached five, you apparently hit some sort of context changeover, because: Amistad!!!!! -> Murder! Sadly, it has since been fixed.
  - dlhavema 13y ago
    if someone kept on yelling "Friendship!" louder and louder, it might lead to murder...
- justincormack 13y ago
  No doubt would be confused by "peru is the Spanish for turkey" as well...
  - rbonvall 13y ago
    Nitpick: peru is the Portuguese for turkey. In Spanish it is "pavo".
- nknighthb 13y ago
  Now I'm imagining an automated translation of a story from, say, the Star Trek universe to the Star Wars universe, substituting place and character names based on frequency of use in each universe.
  - epochwolf 13y ago
    Bad idea. Star Trek stories are horrid quality compared to Star Wars.[1] Do Star Wars to Star Trek. ;) 1: Based on my own experience. I've read at least 50% of the available Star Trek books and 75% of Star Wars. I've got maybe four Star Trek books I've liked and dozens of Star Wars ones.
    - cema 13y ago
      Maybe he was talking about the canon (the TV episodes) of Star Trek and the movies of Star Wars?
  - mkehrt 13y ago
    I believe you are looking for this: http://tattuinardoelasaga.wordpress.com/ http://tattuinardoelasaga.wordpress.com/
  - acc00 13y ago
    You might like http://neil.fraser.name/software/diff_match_patch/svn/trunk/demos/demo_patch.html http://neil.fraser.name/software/diff_match_patch/svn/trunk/...
Someone 13y ago
St. Martin St. Dr. Martin Luther King Dr. Red & black; Black & Decker. Blue moon, blue Nile, blue sky?

by bbx 13y ago

mjn 13y ago

Because of Google's approach based strictly on statistical regularities, words can completely change translations based on context even in languages where that wouldn't normally happen, because the contexts can swing the estimates. One funny one comes with city names, where Google sometimes mistakenly "translates" a city to a different city that happens to have frequent usage in the target language, in contexts that it must find analogous. For example, here are some translations involving the Danish city Billund (location of Lego), which change even based on punctuation: Billund -> Billund Jeg er i Billund -> I am in Billund Jeg er i Billund. -> I'm in London. For whatever reason, intriguing place-name translations are particularly common in the Danish->English case. Brøndby is often Red Sox, Odense is Kentucky, and Hillerød is sometimes Whatfield.

mikeash 13y ago
My favorite one was the word "Amistad!" translated Spanish->English: Amistad! -> Friendship! You could add more exclamation points, and they'd show up on the other side: Amistad!!! -> Friendship!!! But when you reached five, you apparently hit some sort of context changeover, because: Amistad!!!!! -> Murder! Sadly, it has since been fixed.
- dlhavema 13y ago
  if someone kept on yelling "Friendship!" louder and louder, it might lead to murder...
justincormack 13y ago
No doubt would be confused by "peru is the Spanish for turkey" as well...
- rbonvall 13y ago
  Nitpick: peru is the Portuguese for turkey. In Spanish it is "pavo".
nknighthb 13y ago
Now I'm imagining an automated translation of a story from, say, the Star Trek universe to the Star Wars universe, substituting place and character names based on frequency of use in each universe.
- epochwolf 13y ago
  Bad idea. Star Trek stories are horrid quality compared to Star Wars.[1] Do Star Wars to Star Trek. ;) 1: Based on my own experience. I've read at least 50% of the available Star Trek books and 75% of Star Wars. I've got maybe four Star Trek books I've liked and dozens of Star Wars ones.
  - cema 13y ago
    Maybe he was talking about the canon (the TV episodes) of Star Trek and the movies of Star Wars?
- mkehrt 13y ago
  I believe you are looking for this: http://tattuinardoelasaga.wordpress.com/ http://tattuinardoelasaga.wordpress.com/
- acc00 13y ago
  You might like http://neil.fraser.name/software/diff_match_patch/svn/trunk/demos/demo_patch.html http://neil.fraser.name/software/diff_match_patch/svn/trunk/...

Someone 13y ago

St. Martin St. Dr. Martin Luther King Dr. Red & black; Black & Decker. Blue moon, blue Nile, blue sky?